Learning the game all over again

Kim Mecca can drive a golf ball 200 yards. With one arm. And golf isn't even her best sport.

KIETRYN ZYCHAL

Kim Mecca can drive a golf ball 200 yards. With one arm. And golf isn't even her best sport.

Mecca was always an athlete. In high school, she played softball and basketball, but golf was just too slow. She started her college career at a junior college in Scranton and played sports during her freshman year.

She was just 18 years old, working a summer job at an industrial laundry in Dunmore, when she had an accident that changed her life. Some sheets in a large washing machine were on the spin cycle, and the machine was off balance. She reached in to grab a sheet while the machine was still spinning. She had seen other people do it and never realized how dangerous it was. The sheet wrapped around Mecca's arm so tightly it acted like a tourniquet, cutting off the blood supply.

For eight days, doctors tried in vain to save her arm. Mecca spent a month in the hospital. "I was a "righty," so I had to learn how to do everything over," she said.

What was the first thing Mecca did when she got out home from the hospital? "I tried to shoot a basketball," she said.

Mecca played basketball her sophomore year on the Lackawanna College team and they won the Nationals for two-year colleges. She also played softball in college, testing her skills as a pitcher and at first base. Mecca finished her degree at East Stroudsburg University.

Mecca learned to golf with her friends, a group of about 10 athletic girls who hung out together. She never really took lessons. "I just figured it out on my own," she said. In 1991, Mecca heard about the Eastern Amputee Golf Association. "I was amazed at how good the players were," she said.

Since 1998, she has organized an EAGA golf tournament at Woodloch Springs Resort in Hawley. Amputee golfers are paired with able bodied golfers. According to the group's Web site, www.eaga.org, "The EAGA objectives are to assist in the rehabilitation of amputees and provide for their general welfare, both physical and psychological, through the medium of golf and its associated activities." All the golf tournaments contribute toward college scholarships to qualified applicants who are amputee members and/or family members. Next year will be Mecca's tenth year of organizing the tournament at Woodloch Springs.

Mecca has raised four children as an amputee. "The first baby was scary, especially in the bathtub because he was so slippery," she said. "When we went out in public, I just told the four of them to hang on to me, because I had to hold the baby with my arm. But, I had to get out of the house."

Asked how long it took her to get over the accident psychologically, Mecca replied, "I don't know if I'm over it yet. It's how you deal with it that matters."